


Spycraft

by akire_yta



Series: prompt ficlets [423]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Brotp, Gen, Pre-Series, Spies, meta-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 02:35:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9362192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akire_yta/pseuds/akire_yta
Summary: a prompt was doing the rounds on tumblr, and tb5-heavenward/madilayn encouraged me.  The prompt post:where an international spy gets the wrong intel and strikes up a conversation with an informant but it turns out the other person is just normal. they aren’t a spy, they’re just having a coffee when this well dressed stranger quoted some pop culture reference and they couldn’t help but answer because like, it was so obvious.  now the spy weekly talks shop while the normal person relates





	

**Author's Note:**

> this started life as a meta-fic and slowly turned into something resembling promptfic, archiving mostly for completeness sake. Probably makes more sense on tumblr: http://akireyta.tumblr.com/post/151597469728/madilayn-akireyta-madilayn

BUTBUTBUTBUT IMAGINE IT....

gingers are already a tiny minority, and Penny’s only been given sparse details to make the contact - ginger, male, tall, at this place in this time.

and, well, there’s only one man in the area who matches the description.  What are the odds?

But Penny doesn’t play dice with fate, so when the man gets up to go get sugar - despite the fact she already saw him put two sugars into his coffee, classic spy gambit to create a space for an intercept - Penny goes to get a stirrer, stepping up next to the man at the little condiments stand.

Her instructions were to drop the codephrase into conversation - if he had the counter sign, she may proceed.  “Look at this,” she started, nodding at the range of jars on the shelf.  “Seven different types of sweetener, but no honey.”

The man seems surprised to be spoken to – perhaps his intel was as thin as hers.  “I think they’re out.  Sorry.”

Penny took a deep breath.  “You mock my pain.”

The tall man with the copper-red hair smiled, his posture subtly relaxing, as if she had passed a test. “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

Penny sighed with relief.  Sign and countersign.  She stuck out her hand.  “Call me Penny.  Let’s talk.”  She turned back to his table.

Behind him, still clutching a fist-full of sugar packets, John blinked in surprise.  “Ok.  Penny.  Whatever.”  Maybe, he thought has he followed her back through the cafe, she was as pleased to meet a Princess Bride fan as he was.

 

 * * *

As far as John can figure out, Penny is in some competitive program over on the other side of campus - maybe somewhere in the business school, he isn’t quite sure - and she has decided to buy John a coffee in exchange for getting his attention for an hour to kvetch.

To be honest, John has had worse friendships.  In truth, he likes this coffee shop, even if it’s a bit out of his way.  They make real chai, and do all their own baking, and Penny has a knack of securing them the two comfy armchairs in the corner.

Also, her program sounds _horrible_.  It makes John appreciate his lab all the more.

“…so then, I had no choice left but to garrote him with a stocking,” Penny was saying.  As far as John can tell, she’s been spending the last few weeks in some kind of intensive program that sounds _brutal_ , all backstabbing and double dealing.  He wonders if this is how stockbrokers are trained.

He sipped his chai.  “But you won?” he enquires politely.

Penny tosses her hair, takes a sip of her now-cold espresso.  “Well, yes, obviously.  I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s good to hear,” he says, and means it.  He’s becoming, despite himself, engrossed in Penny’s little psychodramas.  “Tell me, how did it go with Daveed?”

“Oh,” Penny said, her eyes going wide.  “Let me tell you what that little backstabber did.  Next time I see him, I swear, I’m going to cut him.”

His mug was warm, and his chair was extremely comfortable, and John relaxed as Penny launched, hands waving, into her next story.

 * * *

It’s a rainy Tuesday when the penny finally drops and operates John’s brain.  
  
“Wait, MI5?” he asked, cutting into Penny’s tirade mid-flow.  
  
Penny blinked; John never interrupted. “Oh, didn’t you hear? Orders from on high to ‘co-operate.’” Her fingers sketch quote marks in the air. “Anyway, then that utter prat Anderson said….”  
  
John sat back, clutching his tea. Not an MBA student. Killing it, not a metaphor.  
  
John considered his options. Admitting he had absolutely nothing to do with the intelligence community whatsoever would probably, at this point, be what they called a tactical error.  
  
Besides, even under false pretenses, Penny was, for want of a better word, a friend. So John did what he did best.  
  
He listened.

 * * *

Penny will never admit, even under the most refined tortures, how long it took for her to realize that John wasn’t her contact.

When the _actual_  Agent Smith is introduced to her after a briefing, Penny nods, and smiles, and mentally plans to _murder_  John.

Luckily, she’s coming off the back end of a long sting, and her caseload is mostly paperwork.  It takes Penny less than a day to have all of John’s legal documents, his entire life history, everything down to his email password.

John is not Agent John Smith, fully cleared operative with a Masters in clinical psychology and a permanent stay from field duties following an unfortunate close call with a land mine.  John is John Tracy, PhD candidate in computer science with a Masters in astrophysics and absolutely no ties to any intelligence operation whatsoever.

Penny is sure; she went looking.

But nothing ties him to any enemy, foreign or domestic.  All he is is a tired grad student who just happened to bear more than a passing resemblance to the real Agent Smith.

If she’s honest with herself, she’s not actually _surprised_.  It’s like some deep, subconscious part of her made the connection, and just failed to let conscious mind know.  Having John’s real life laid out on her screens before her, it’s as if she’s only now finally letting the dots connect.

Penny leaves HQ, walking along the embankment by the river.  If protocol was to be observed, she needed to report the breach, admit her mistake, take her punishment and most likely set John up for a very nasty fall as well.

On the other hand, a second though intruded, John was a candidate for astronaut training.  He already had passed several background checks.  And the clinical staff who monitored all field agents talked often about how important mental health was, about having someone to help destress after life under cover.

Penny smiled to herself; officially, anyone outside needed to be vetted first, but Penny had hacked those servers back when she was a bored cadet.  It would be the work of maybe twenty minutes to file a few forgeries.

With a spring in her step, Penny headed towards their cafe.


End file.
